The Purge is actually real

The idea of The Purge and its sequel is that in a dystopian future, the US government introduces a program that enables people to commit all sorts of crimes without legal repercussion for the duration of 24 hours. Supposedly this reduces overall crime, because according to this backwards view of psychology, murdering and raping people is cathartic.

Psychological nonsense aside, The Purge is very real. It’s happening right now, except the limitation is not time-based. It can happen at any time, on any day, and nobody is safe. But rather than exempt everyone for one day a year, the government exempts some people for the whole year.

What am I talking about?

Soldiers and policemen.

Soldiers and policemen can, under government sanction that exempts them from the legal repercussions that all the rest of us face, murder, rape, and assault in wars and during raids and arrests, and steal in the form of taxes and confiscations.

The Purge is not talking about a dystopian future – it’s talking about the world as it is today, and as it has been for millennia.